Fresno Famous

more jazz info

i see it in the list, but i thought i'd give a little more info about the jazz during the upcoming rogue festival. jazz fresno is presenting rogue jazz @ tower mosaic. for a full line up, click over here and then click on rogue jazz 2008 banner.

not to mention that david aus, gary newmark, and andre bush host a regular jazz jam there on the 2nd & 4th sunday nights of the month @ 7 pm.

Re: Audience

I can't comment on the event because I wasn't able to make it due to a recent death in my family and all of the stuff that involves. However, in general here's a few things to think about:

1) It's not just a Fresno issue. There are many times when a major artist, jazz, classical, etc performs to a less than full house, sometimes to a LOT less than 50-60 people, even in places like LA and the Bay Area. Or a full house in a venue with a capacity of only about 50 or 60. Many of the top jazz clubs in New York are smaller than you would think.

2) The Murray event was promoted on Mindhub, on 90.7 KFSR, on www.jazzfresno.org, etc. I don't know if it was posted on Fresno Famous or in the Bee.

3) You can't simply use one event and say "this wasn't well enough attended - Fresno doesn't appreciate ______." There are a lot of factors that can influence the success or failure of an event, from marketing to venue, to cost, to the day and time of the event, to weather, what else is going on. Sometimes evern if you do everything right, things don't work, as well as vice versa. It's a stange business to be in. Some of the factors that can make a big difference? Time is a big one - Thursday, Friday and Saturday night events are generally better attended than Sunday night gigs, as this one was. Is the venue one that people are familiar with or not? Cost of an event can also be a factor, though sometimes it can be more lucrative to have a smaller crowd at a higher ticket price than a larger crowd at a lower ticket price. I think we need to leave evaluating the success of events to the people responsible for putting them on, and in this case, applaud the promoter for her work in making this happen, and look forward to attending more of her events in the future. Likwise, I think Marsol has a lot of potential to be a great asset to our community.

Now about audience development-

As a board member of JazzFresno, I can say that we're very interested in audience development, as is every arts organization in Fresno. There are so many great opportunities to hear world class musicians (including local artists who are truly world class). Scolding people for "not supporting" something is never a wise strategy for audience growth. Also having unrealistic expectations is not healthy either. Clubs the caliber of Yoshis are SO rare, even LA doesn't have something on that level for jazz - you can count them (nationwide) on both hands. Building awareness, through both education and marketing is something that is essential to growing any arts audience, especially in Fresno, and it's a long term process.

Part of the long term vision for JazzFresno is to establish a dedicated non-profit performance facility for jazz (and other music) in Fresno, much like what the Kuumbwa jazz center has done in Santa Cruz. Doing arts events in ANY city in this country is almost always not a money making proposition. So we're working on building the foundation and support network that can make something like this a reality, as for the most part, jazz events aren't going to be money makers on their own, not if you're paying your artists a fair fee.

I think we're at least three to five years away from that point of having such a venue, but in the meantime there's a TON of great music in this community, jazz and beyond, and places like the online calendar at www.jazzfresno.org have a wealth of information about what's going on. Here's just a few things coming up in the community:

Jan 31st - Armen Nalbandian w/ Dutch avant garde drummer Han Bennink @ the Art Museum
Feb 1st-2nd - San Joaquin Valley Jazz Festival w/ guest artist Terell Stafford (trumpeter from Philly) @ Buchanan High School
*Feb 21st - Poncho Sanchez (the "King of Latin Jazz") at Roosevelt High Auditorium!
*Feb 28th - March 8th "Rogue Jazz" at Tower Mosaic w/ Eva Scow & Javon Davis; David Aus Ensemble; Fibonacci Cubed; Protean Visions; The Guitar Titans (part of the Rogue Festival)
March 2nd - pianist & vocalist Freddy Cole (brother of Nat King Cole) at the Tower Theatre
*April 3rd & 4th - City Jazz Festival at Fresno City College with a headline concert with Kansas City based vocalist Kevin Mahogany Friday April 4th

* = JazzFresno produced/co-produced events

We're not from here...

Man, I gotta agree with Rick about the calibre of this jazzman, David Murray. I used to hang out at Keystone Corner/SF about 30 years ago and I was resigned to the fact that I would never hear music like this again...the kind that demands that you pay attention.
Sista Kee on piano sang "We're not from here, we're from the kingdom of god..." and they musta been to take me to the places that I went. Ascension, probably as close to religion as I will ever get.
This ain't no KEZL.
Enthusiastic thumbs up to Team Januss Productions for booking this event. And to Marsol for letting 'em. This is the best place to happen to the Tower in a long time.
Pharoah Sanders, anyone?

Marketing?

I dont recall hearing much about this event. Who brought him and what were their marketing/advertising tools?
I would've been there. Thats too bad.
Yeah, comparing Marsol to Yoshi's, way off the mark but still fun to think about!

Give Us Kenny G

What do you expect, this is Fresno. If people like jazz they want to hear Kenny G at the Tower or at Coombs Ranch.